We are continuing with National Nutrition Month with several key points. Today, I would like to discuss the topic of handling food properly:

Prepare, handle, and store food properly to keep you and your family safe from food-borne illness.

So often we think about the healthiness of the foods we eat but don’t realize that how we handle, prepare and store food is just as important as how nutritional the food is. These two points go hand-in-hand to keep us healthy each day.

Why is food safety important?

Bacteria (germs) are all around us. They sometimes get into the food we eat through our environment. Bacteria may grow on our food if we let our food sit out long enough, or if we keep them in the refrigerator too long (for example, moldy food). Bacteria may also get into our food if we don’t wash our hands, the surfaces on which we keep foods, or the containers in which we store/prepare food.  As well, bacteria get into our food if we sneeze/cough on it. I think you get the picture.

We can’t protect our food from all bacteria, but we can take steps to keep the bacteria from getting out of control. Think of bacteria as the weeds in your garden–you’re always going to have some, but if it takes over the garden, then your plants will get sick. If the bacteria take over our food, we will get a food borne illness. Make sense? Also, bacteria grow best in temperatures between 40-140 degrees F so it’s best to keep foods out of this temperature range.

People at greatest risk for a food borne illness:

• Elderly
• Children and babies
• Pregnant women
• People with compromised immune systems (people taking steroids for long periods of time, people undergoing chemotherapy/people with cancer, people with HIV/AIDS to name a few)

What steps can we take to practice food safety?

CLEAN:

• Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds (sing the “mary had a little lamb” or “happy birthday” songs to know how long is enough) before touching any food and before eating food.
• Wash cutting boards and knives/utensils with warm soapy water or the dishwasher after EVERY use.
• Wash your countertops with warm soapy water (I use Chlorox wipes) after you prepare food.

SEPARATE (don’t CROSS-CONTAMINATE):

• Keep raw meat and raw poultry separate from other foods when you are preparing food, when you are storing them, AND when you are buying them.  Don’t put them in the same section of the shopping cart or shopping bags.
• Use a separate cutting board for raw poultry/meat/fish and for raw fruits and vegetables.
• Store your raw meats/seafood/poultry in containers or on plates in the fridge so their juices don’t accidentally drip onto other foods. It is usually best to store them on the lowest shelf of your fridge.
• Don’t use the same plate that you had raw meat/poultry/seafood on to put the cooked version on (this is especially important when you are BBQing).

COOK:

• Use a food thermometer to help you know if a food is cooked. See www.isitdoneyet.gov for proper cooked temperatures of food.
• Stir, cover, and rotate your food if it is in the microwave so that it cooks thoroughly.
• When reheating liquids (like sauces or soups) bring them to a rolling boil so that you kill the bacteria that are potentially in the food.

CHILL:

• Make sure your fridge is set at a temperature less than 40 degrees F. If you don’t know the temp of your fridge, buy a thermometer to keep in there so you always know the temperature.
• Put leftovers and take-out food in the fridge within 2 hours of making/buying them.
• If you made a big container of food (like soup or a casserole), divide it into small/shallow containers before storing them in the fridge. This will help the food get to the appropriate temperature faster.
• Thaw meat/poultry/seafood in the fridge, run it under cool tap water, or thaw it in the microwave; NEVER thaw it on the counter.

I hope that this information is helpful in keeping you and your family safe and healthy!  Please see the USDA’s Food Safety Fact Sheet, Food handling fact sheets, Be Food Safe website, and FightBAC.org website for more information.